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125cc: Simon takes another 125cc victory

125cc world champion Julian Simon won his sixth race of the 2009 season at Sepang after a superb battle with his Aspar Aprilia team-mate Bradley Smith

Just like last week's Australian Grand Prix, the Malaysian event came down to a last lap contest between the duo, from which Simon emerged victorious, although second secured the runner-up spot in the standings for Smith.

Simon had dropped as low as fifth on the opening lap, as Efren Vazquez burst through from ninth on the grid to battle with polesiter Marc Marquez.

The two Spaniards swapped the lead repeatedly while Simon picked his way back up to third, before passing the two leaders at consecutive corners on lap two.

Smith needed a couple more laps to get past Marquez and Vazquez, by which time Simon was a second clear, but a series of fastest laps from the Briton meant that the two Aspar Aprilias were together at the front and a comfortable 4s ahead of their rivals approaching half-distance.

At first Smith - riding with a broken bone in his foot following his qualifying crash - patiently stalked Simon, before diving ahead into the final corner on lap 13.

But despite his best efforts, Smith could not break away, and relinquished the lead again three laps later when he ran slightly wide.

He charged back onto Simon's tail and was side by side with the Spaniard into Turn 9 on the last lap, but Simon held the inside and then resisted another attempt from Smith at the final corner that saw both drift wide.

Pol Espargaro surged forward from 11th on the grid to take third, emerging at the head of what had been a nine-bike battle for the final podium spot. With Simone Corsi crashing out of fourth two laps from the flag, Sergio Gadea, Nico Terol and Sandro Cortese chased Espargaro home.

Marquez and Vazquez both retired - the former suffering an engine problem and the latter falling at the last corner.

Jonas Folger had been charging through this group until making contact with Marquez on lap nine as he tried to go around the outside of the KTM at Turn 1.

The other significant crash happened on the first lap, when Danny Webb fell into the path of Stefan Bradl, taking both out. Bradl was uninjured while Webb reported leg pain.

Pos  Rider               Bike        Time/Gap
 1.  Julian Simon        Aprilia   42m50.916s
 2.  Bradley Smith       Aprilia     + 1.114s
 3.  Pol Espargaro       Derbi       + 6.293s
 4.  Sergio Gadea        Aprilia     + 8.003s
 5.  Nicolas Terol       Aprilia     + 8.485s
 6.  Sandro Cortese      Derbi      + 10.188s
 7.  Esteve Rabat        Aprilia    + 15.114s
 8.  Andrea Iannone      Aprilia    + 22.151s
 9.  Joan Olive          Derbi      + 26.388s
10.  Lorenzo Zanetti     Aprilia    + 27.113s
11.  Takaaki Nakagami    Aprilia    + 27.859s
12.  Michael Ranseder    Aprilia    + 34.838s
13.  Randy Krummenacher  Aprilia    + 41.829s
14.  Dominique Aegerter  Derbi      + 42.433s
15.  Luis Salom          Aprilia    + 51.635s
16.  Elly Ilias          Aprilia    + 59.854s
17.  Cameron Beaubier    KTM      + 1m07.131s
18.  Jasper Iwema        Honda    + 1m14.171s
19.  Jakub Kornfeil      Loncin   + 1m27.651s
20.  Muhammad Zulfahmi   Yamaha   + 1m58.779s
21.  Blake Leigh-Smith   Honda    + 2m06.062s
22.  Quentin Jacquet     Aprilia      + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Simone Corsi        Aprilia   17 laps
     Johann Zarco        Aprilia   17 laps
     Efren Vazquez       Derbi     17 laps
     Luca Marconi        Aprilia   14 laps
     Luca Vitali         Aprilia   13 laps
     Marc Marquez        KTM       12 laps
     Scott Redding       Aprilia   10 laps
     Jonas Folger        Aprilia   10 laps
     Tomoyoshi Koyama    Loncin    2 laps
     Stefan Bradl        Aprilia   0 laps
     Danny Webb          Aprilia   0 laps

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